The Case for Social Catchments: new methods for engaging local communities in natural resource management

interlinked with biophysical, hydrological, cultural, sociological, political, and economic dimensions. This contrasted greatly with the federal government definition that typified NRM as being about the stewardship of economically valuable assets. The eco-civic modelling of NRM areas was found to be based on biophysical characteristics that could be spatially grouped. There was little similarity between the issues given importance by government agencies and those characteristics used in the Eco-civic project.The forums examined in this thesis represented a lost opportunity in changing how people were engaged in NRM due to the failure to achieve a more diverse representation of the Central Tablelands communities. Mismatch of scales was evident in all the differing modes of social catchment organisation and the scale of NRM activity and the Landcare forums, accentuating a clear difference between scales of engagement and NRM governance, with governance catchment based and NRM activity and community engagement unequivocally localised. It can be inferred from this that community engagement activities need to target individuals beyond the traditionally targeted groups if there is to be a wider representation at community forums and genuine community engagement achieved. It was also found that sponsorship of community engagement efforts may possibly be a barrier to people disenfranchised from the sponsoring organisation.